The Fundación Para la Productividad en el Campo, A.C. (FPPC) is a Mexican non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to improve the livelihoods of agricultural producers and their families in rural communities in Mexico.  Founded in 1996, FPPC offers a wide range of services including access to sources of financing, technical and marketing assistance, and training courses (www.apoyoalcampo.org.mx).  The FPPC and NAID Center collaborated with migrant hometown associations in the United States to promote sustainable rural development in migrant-sending regions in Mexico.

FPPC obtains finance capital from the Bank of Mexico by participating in the Programa de Crédito por Administración, a system of finance guarantees for working capital, established in 1995.  As such, FPPC secures low interest loans from a Mexican federal trust fund called Fideicomisos Instituidos con Relación a la Agricultura (FIRA). 

In addition, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) provided a grant to the FPPC to create a matching investment program for Mexican migrant workers in the United States.  For each dollar raised by migrants, IADB committed itself to match an additional dollar that can be used as cash collateral to obtain short term loans for working capital.

NAID & FPPC Productive Project Collaborations

As part of the NAID Center’s continuing effort to build transnational institutional linkages, NAID recruited the Fundación para la Productividad en el Campo (FPPC), Mexico, to join NAID in developing a proposal to the IADB Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF). The idea was to promote collaborative work in both the U.S. and Mexico, given the FPPC’s track record in rural development projects and previous collaboration with NAID on Mexican migrant Hometown Associations (HTAs) in Jalisco.  Given restrictions on MIF financing of institutions in the U.S., the final proposal was submitted by FPPC. 

Once this contract was awarded, the FPPC signed a subcontract in February 2003 with the University of California Regents and the NAID Center.  The NAID Center’s role was to facilitate the FPPC’s productive project efforts in various Mexico sites by identifying, contacting and meeting with Mexican migrants from designated project villages that live and work in the U.S.; by helping organize FPPC workshops for migrants held in the U.S.; by conducting research on these populations and on potential markets for products manufactured by FPPC Mexican client producers; among other designated tasks.   

Reports

"Investment of Remittances for Development in a Migratory Economy" Report on Activities of the UCLA North American Integration and Development Center on the subcontract with Fundacion para la Productividad en el Campo for the Inter-American Development Bank Project.

Productive Projects

MENA ( Mujeres Envasadoras de Nopales) MENA is an Oaxacan women’s food cooperative that grows, packages and sells a native cactus (nopal) among other foods.

Internet Cafe Productive Projects The Internet Cafes were constructed and serviced in partnership with Creative Networks (Enlaces Creative), a small business founded by Sergio Garnelo in 2001 that provides internet service to support several internet cafes in rural communities in western Mexico.